Developed by Tales Team and published by Bandai Namco, Tales of Xillia is a relatively recent title in the long-running and fairly popular Tales of series. While it doesn't quite live up to the high standards Tales of The Abyss and Tales of Vesperia set, it's still quite an enjoyable action JRPG!

The story is actually one of the strong points of Xillia with many excellent plot-twists and curveballs thrown you'll be left guessing what's next! The game also lets you choose your main character, each of the two characters has a slightly different story similar to how Star Ocean: The Second Story utilizes the very same feature!

The game is fairly short by the series standards and can be beaten within 50-60 hours on your first playthrough. The game utilizes the same combat formula the Tales of series is famous for and tweaks it a bit with the link system and a skill tree to buildup your characters however you want to!

The game is fairly light on puzzle solving which depending on your personal tastes could be either a good or bad thing. An interesting new feature is that you actually have to level-up shops to get better prices and unlock new products by donating money and materials. Lastly the characters are extremely likeable in Tales of Xillia and character development is done right!

Visually the game looks nice especially the animated cut-scenes, however the many fields and dungeons look too similar to one-another which feels rather lazy, though the main towns look nice. The ports also have the same problem with all of them looking identical to each other. The characters and enemies on the other hand are varied and look excellent. The soundtrack is also very well-done and fits the game quite well!

Bottom-Line:

With excellent gameplay, a great story, and a fantastic audio presentation, Tales of Xillia is a great PS3 action-rpg that fans of the series and genre should truly enjoy, however the lack of creativity in the games fields and dungeons really hold this game back on a visual standpoint, however we still highly recommend this game!